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Youth is the time to go flashing from one end of the world to the other both in mind and body; to try the manners of different nations; to hear the chimes at midnight; to see sunrise in town and country; to be converted at a revival; to circumnavigate the metaphysics, write halting verses, run a mile to see a fire, and wait all day long in the theatre to applaud Hernani.

He spoke with pathetic bitterness. Like Don Ruy Gomez da Silva in "Hernani," he gave her to understand that now, when a young fellow passed him in the street, he would give up all his motor-cars and all his colossal canned-salmon business for the young fellow's raven hair and bright eyes. "Then you would love me. I could make you." "What is love, after all?" asked Zora.

On Friday we had our first rehearsal of "Hernani," at Bridgewater House, and I was greatly surprised with some of the acting, which, allowing for a little want of technical experience, was, in Mr. Craven's instance, really very good. He is the grandson of old Lady Craven, the Margravine of Anspach, and enacts the hero of the piece, which I think he will do very well.

Youth is the time to go flashing from one end of the world to the other both in mind and body; to try the manners of different nations; to hear the chimes at midnight; to see sunrise in town and country; to be converted at a revival; to circumnavigate the metaphysics, write halting verses, run a mile to see a fire, and wait all day long in the theatre to applaud HERNANI. There is some meaning in the old theory about wild oats; and a man who has not had his green-sickness and got done with it for good is as little to be depended on as an unvaccinated infant.

But I was so disgusted with it that I would not have changed a line for a million francs. In a word, I am dished. It must be said too that the hall was detestable, all fops and students who did not understand the material sense of the words. They made jokes of the poetical things. A poet says: "I am of 1830, I learned to read in Hernani, and I wanted to be Lara."

Murray has sent me some beautiful and delightful books.... A third representation of "Hernani" is called for, it seems, and, as far as I am concerned, they are welcome to it; but Lady Francis came to say that the Duchess of Gloucester wants it to be acted on the 23d, and I am afraid that will not do for my theater arrangements; they must try and have it earlier, if possible.

Its magnificent green-room, the walls lined with portraits of departed celebrities of that famous theater, amazed her by its splendor; and to her it was a strange and curious sight to see the actors in "Hernani" come in and play cards in their gorgeous stage costumes at intervals in the performance.

All his friends said so; his honor was at stake. In three weeks another play was ready. The censors read it and gave their report. They said that "Hernani" was whimsical in conception, defective in execution, a tissue of extravagances, generally trivial and often coarse. But they advised that it be put upon the stage, just to show the public to what extent of folly an author could go.

"Ernani," a tragic opera in four acts, words by F.M. Piave, the subject taken from Victor Hugo's tragedy of "Hernani," was first produced at Venice, March 9, 1844. The earlier performances of the opera gave the composer much trouble.

Lord Francis Leveson wants to get up his version of Victor Hugo's "Hernani," at Bridgewater House, and has begged me, as a favor, to act the heroine; all the rest are to be amateurs. I have consented to this, not knowing well how to refuse, yet for one or two reasons I almost think I had better not have done so.